Historic Home Transformation: Our Story
Join us on our first historic home transformation! We finally found what we were looking for: the worst house in the best neighborhood.
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Historic Home Transformation: The Beginning
In the summer of 2019 we moved into our first house. It is a beautiful, old, 1 1/2 story mutt of a bungalow that I estimate was built sometime in the 1920’s.
It doesn’t really have a style consistent with any period, partly due to the tragic “updates” the home was subjected to over the last century,
Given its age, I’d say it has the overall structure of a small craftsman bungalow. There are also elements of an American cottage and a stylistic touch of victorian.
The Worst House In The Best Neighborhood
We absolutely love the house and, especially our location – in the middle of a thriving small town. There’s a big park across the street. There are woods surrounding us on three sides of our house with a really great neighbor to the fourth.
It took almost two years of looking at dozens of houses before this came onto our radar.
The morning it went on the market, my dutiful real estate agent told me I should take a look at it, and quickly!
After 20 minutes of walking around the property and the house, I realized that we finally found what we were looking for: the worst house in the best neighborhood.
Historic Home Transformation: “I Trust You”
I could tell the place hadn’t received any love over the last century. All the “updates” that were done lacked any respect or reverence for the integrity of the house itself.
It seems that the 50’s through the 90’s was a particularly rough period for many older homes. Their owners had aspirations of “modernizing” them, but the execution or craftsmanship was lacking.
I saw right through all the shoddy work and deferred maintenance. I knew that buried under all the garbage, there was a charming, beautiful, quaint old house. It had so much more potential than any of its previous owners could imagine.
It was the first house that had nearly everything we were looking for. I was not expecting to find in our town.
Since I believed I had finally found the house we were looking for, I immediately called my wife. All she said was “I trust you,” before going back to taking care of our one year old daughter.
That afternoon I told my agent to put in a bid for asking price on the house. Long story short, we won the bidding war to close with a very fair deal on the property.
The Cobbler’s Children Have No Shoes
Since I’m a carpenter/painter/remodeler for a living, it’s not always easy to get work done on my own house.
“The cobbler’s children have no shoes” is an old saying that sums it up pretty well.
I knew that the restoration work on our house would be a labor of love. And that it would happen on weekends and after my kids went to bed.
Unsurprisely, the work doesn’t get done fast. It’s also amazing to see the progress we’ve made since 2019.
When I do manage to finish a project, it will make its way into Maxon Made’s renovation journal.
Stay tuned!
Have you ever bought and lived in a fixer upper as you worked on it? Tell me about it!